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Sunday, February 15, 2009

What's up!

We have some great friends who just had a baby boy. I actually got inspired and made a card for them! I also used the rub ons from stampin' up! Which are so easy, see "welcome little one" on the card. Anywho I made their card by paper piecing the little elephant. I first stamped the image on white, then stamped it again on orange and cut our just the elephant. Then with pop dots I raised the elephant up a bit. I loved using buttons for the wheels too!

Most of you know that I had a super fun stamp camp at my house the day before super bowl. We had so much fun talking, I don't remember teaching anything! One of the attendees had this great version of a gift card I made. I love how she shredded the ribbon to make it look like it was blowing in the wind of the fan! Marissa gets stamp party MVP!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Re-organized...AGAIN!

My husband and I are once again trying to re-organize. Does anyone else understand "re-organization" as another term for "can't find space for all of our junk"!? I'm not sure how much more we can fit in our apartment...BUT I love re-organizing because I almost always get a more organized...let's call it a paper crafting studio! haha! Doesn't that sound professional? So here are a few pics of my collection so far!

Most of you who have seen my room know that I only get half. The other half belongs to hubby. I am making progress in my take over though! So I have moved in some bookcases so everything is visible. Which helps when I am making things. You know, "out of sight, out of mind" I was never using the stuff I had that was in drawers or worse yet in the bottom of the drawers!

For all of you renters out there, I just wanted to show a close up of my "decor elements" from Stampin' Up! It is like a decal for your walls. I chose the definition "create". I think it is fitting for this area in our home! The great thing about these is that they are totally removable if you change apartments or change moods and want to decorate differently. I'll update you when I get some more! I am being indecisive, but I know I will get more.

Just a little close up of my favorite chair...in pink...that's why it is my favorite! It is not that comfortable! But you can also see that I have some rubbermaid drawers behind my desk. I use them for tools like my heat gun, paper crimper, envelopes, etc. And then it also creates another surface where I put my cuttelbug and even more paper.

That is my little tour. As I tell everyone my ultimate goal is to have an entire room all to myself and have a real studio! I'll invite you all over when that happens! Happy crafting!





Friday, January 9, 2009

My Hubby did a Christmas Craft!

I had some double sided scrapbook paper left over from my Christmas cards. So I cut it into little strips. Use your judgement and on the size of the strip. Ours were 1in x 2in. Then we simply took Styrofoam cones and straight pins and the decorating began. I also used little wooden blocks, covered in scrapbook paper, for the base. I wasn't sure how the finish the top off...so pine cones and ribbon seemed like a good solution. We were pretty impressed with ourselves! I think you could do this sort of thing for every holiday. You could make a valentine tree or easter tree...or my new favorite idea, a halloween tree...with spides and creepy stuff!


Monday, November 24, 2008

I know...I know what you are thinking....I actually made some Christmas cards...AND posted them before Christmas is over!!! Hooray! So here are my samples. I used the blue card with mittens for my monthly card swap group. So Hooray one more time and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
If you make your cards this year send me a sample picture so I can share it on the blog too.
mas




Sunday, July 20, 2008

Technique terrific!

Hi everyone!
Last weekend I had my fundraiser for Team in Training. We made five cards and learned a lot of techniques. Even though I was the "teacher" I learned so much from everyone! Here are samples of what we learned. And yep, it's all Stampin' Up! materials.

This is the card we made demonstrating masking and paper piecing. We used the stamp set unfrogettable (which is retiring at the end of this month, so if you want it let me know ASAP). If you have to make multiple cards or don't have a lot of time it is helpful to use stamps that have simple shapes to cut out. Here we used the toadstool from the stamp set. Masking is the technique that allows the toadstools to be in the foreground and the flowers in the background. First we stamped the toadstools on the white paper, and also stamped them on post-it notes. We then cut the toadstools out of the post-it note and stuck them over the toadstools on the white paper. This allowed us to stamp the flowers directly over the toadstools. Then remove the post-it notes and the flowers look like they are in the background. Paper piecing is very easy also. Here we just stamped the snail in white on the black card and also stamped him on orange. We cut out the shell in orange and adhered it to the card. Hence an orange shell. This technique is really great with floral stamps too.

This is just a sample of a technique using pastels. Pastels are like chalks. In the above card we stamped the flower images with Versamark and then used Qtips rubbed in pastels to make the flower pop! The Pastels stick to the Versamark lines. Click on the picture to see it close up. It is the easiest pastel technique ever! This was my sample, but the other participants really went to town with the technique! The saying at the bottom of the card is stamped in regular ink.

In this card we learned about embossing. The bottom of the card is dry embossed using a brass plate from Stampin' Up!, a light table and stylus. Something interesting that I learned is that cardstock is difficult to see through to the pattern on the brass plate. Some tips others shared were to rub wax paper against the card stock and it helps you see the light through. I also learned that it is easier to emboss on papers that have color on one side and white on the other. The top part of the card was made using white paper and stamping butterflies in Versamark. Then we sprinkled with white embossing powder and heated with a heat gun. Then to add some "wow!" we took sponge dobbers and rubbed lovely lilac, certainly celery, and cool caribean ink in the background. The heat embossed images resist the ink perfectly. I really love this technique.

If you haven't guessed yet, I used all of my favorite stamp sets. This one is no exception. It is called "silly sea" life and is perfect for the watercolor technique. I have found that the easiest way to water color is with the Stampin' Up! blender pens and the water color crayons. We just barely colored the turtle and then used the blender pens to pull the color over the entire turtle image. And like the other cards...the women did wonders with this design! Next time I am taking close up pictures of their work and posting it too!

Hooray for kissing! This is technique is called kissing and allows a solid stamp to have pattern. It works great on solid alphabet letters too! We used the "wild about you" stamp set and the paisley background stamp. First we inked the elephant with marigold morning ink and then we inked the paisley stamp with positively pink. Then you press the stamps together and stamp the elephant on white paper. Tah dah, a paisley elephant!

Hope you can make it to the next event! Also I wanted to thank again the Scrapbook Depot who opened their store to us and let us have our event in air conditioning! You can learn more about them at www.myscrapbookdepot.com

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Yes I am still stamping!!!

Keeping up with stamping, wedding planning, work and a blog is tough! So I'll spare you the stories and just cut to the cards! I'll have more to post next week after my Team in Training Fundraiser...that's right I'm doing a marathon this year too! CRAZY! you can read about it at walkingwendy.blogspot.com and donate too!

These are a package of cards I made with scraps. I love using my scraps!

This card uses the cracked glass technique. You can click on the picture to see in more detail. It is a process of using Glassy Glaze from stampin' up and doing 4 layers, then pop it in the freezer and when you take it out carefully bend the paper back and forth and it cracks!

One of the submissions to my card group. I love ribbon and tearing paper!

Outside.

Inside. I colored with marker and pastels in the background.

Another package of cards made from scraps! And my favorite stamp set Unfrogettable.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Hmmmm Happy New Year!


So I know these are late but I think the principal designs can be used for Valentine's or spring cards! For example, the snow man card can be recreated with a spring time stamp wheel. Run the wheel on two strips of paper. Leave one black and white and color in a portion of the other strip. After that, punch out the colored portion and fix it to the black and white strip with pop up dots. This is a really fun technique with fish stamps...then you can punch out the color portion with a circle punch and it is kind of bubble-like! Super cute!

I like the black "winter" card because it looks elegant but is simple to make. It is silver ink on black cardstock with a silver cord tied at the crease. Don't underestimate the power of black cardstock, it is tough to adjust to, but once you do, it looks great! With black paper, silver ink and for Valentines day, red accents your card will really pop!
(remember you can click on the pic for a closer look)

I am still taking orders for Stampin' up! but have fallen behind on having classes. Just an FYI the spring/summer catalog is out and can be seen at www.stampinup.com Planning the wedding is putting me in over-drive! I'll keep you all posted on the next class, but until then don't hesitate to send me pics of your cards..I would love to post them on the blog!